Aside from the NZ Police’s questionable use of the DRUG HARM INDEX to self interestedly perpetuate an unaccounted policy, demanding as it were ‘more resources’ without any accounting for ‘deliverable outcomes’, it is entirely contestable in managerial let alone economic terms.

The Drug Squad is in effect ‘deficit funded’ without as much a skerit of evidence that the resources AND priorities are allocated with ANY efficiency.

This is POOR management practice.

This was roundly critiqued by visiting top cop and former head of Scotland Yard Narcotics/London Metro, Chief Super Det. Eddie Ellison to the Ministry of Justice in 2004. (Eddie was also a founding member of TRANSFORM, now with UN consultative standing )

“It wouldn’t pass muster at Police College, let alone the Home Office. There is no room in modern policing for unaccountable deployment blindly following political directives” -(private conversation with the writer)